Bloodletting
by ncfan
Summary: Amarië's first experience with battle, and with the wounded.


I own nothing.

* * *

They had barely landed when they were first beset. The Valar had moved on ahead, bidding the hosts of the Calaquendi to stay back behind them. The Valar would contend directly with the foul enchantments of the Enemy. They would hold back the direct brunt of the Great Enemy's malice, while the Calaquendi contended with the Great Enemy's foot-soldiers.

It seemed to Amarië that they had barely set foot on the shore when the first rain of arrows came. She and the other non-combatants, healers and herbalists mostly, were pushed back behind the ranks, and the land erupted into the screams and bloodletting of war.

She stood there, dumbfound and wide-eyed, as her fellows leapt into the fray in the pale light of dawn, the Vanyar with their spears and the Noldor with their long, bright swords. One of the Falmari mariners called out that the fleet would withdraw into open waters until the battle had ended.

The Vanyar and the Noldor battled against the foul, twisted creatures who could only be Orcs—Amarië had heard too many tales of them from her grandfather to mistake them for anything else. Many rushed in without even bothering to take stock of their surroundings; Amarië's sister Thorondis nearly knocked her over in her haste to aid her fellow soldiers. Blood splattered on the ground. Soldiers fell. The reek of blood and the screaming of the Calaquendi and the Orcs rose in her ears.

_This is war, then?_

Amarië was struck witless, but others about her were not. Fimbalda the healer hurriedly set up her surgery, accompanied by her senior apprentices; Finië the apothecary began organizing her herbs. Amarië stood there, struck witless, as the first of the wounded were shuffled to the back of the ranks and passed off to the healers.

"Amarië?"

She watched the fighting, appalled. Someone had lit fires somewhere; the smoke stung her eyes.

_This is war?_

"Amarië!" Someone shook her shoulder roughly; Amarië turned round, dazed, to meet the pale, nearly colorless eyes of Calarornë, one of Fimbalda's senior apprentices. "You're needed in the surgery; come on."

Amarië stumbled back towards the surgery, where Fimbalda was calling for clean water and linens for bandages. Finië was mashing herbs in poultices, and laid out on a table was a dark-haired nér. He was drawing in deep, gasping breaths, staring up at the sky, clutching at a wound on his side only to have his hand slapped away by Fimbalda as she leaned close over it in examination.

Amarië herself was told to hold the nér's shoulders so he could not flail about as the injury on his side and the others he had sustained were looked at. She rested her hands on his shoulders. The linen of his tunic was rough and unrefined; they had been set upon so suddenly that the host of the Calaquendi had not even the time to don their armor before fighting. Would he have been able to avoid sustaining these injuries, if he'd been given the time to don his armor? Amarië did not know. She could not think straight. She could barely breathe. She could barely swallow down the bile rising in her throat.

Her eyes darted to and fro, back and forth. They wandered to the ranks of fighting soldiers, neri and nissi pushing and shoving and brandishing their bright swords and spears. The wounded were being slowly siphoned out of the ranks, taken to other healers. This… This… This was chaos. It was utter chaos Amarië had imagined neat, clean ranks divided evenly, an orderly affair, but this was brutal. It was ugly. She saw Orcs pouring down the hills towards them like ants descending from their anthills. They had indeed lit fires, and pyres of smoke barred the pale blue sky. As Anar the Fire-golden steadily climbed higher in the sky, the mixed miasma of smoke, sweat and blood became a nauseating reek.

Turning her gaze back to the soldier on the table provided no relief. His skin had taken on a grayish pallor; he was no longer struggling as he had been. Finië had finished her poultices, meant to ease the pain and stave off infection or the effects of poisoning, "in case the Orcs have been poisoning their weapons", and their acrid odor only commingled with the stench rising from the battlefield. The nér's breathing was shallow, and hitched. He was visibly struggling to keep his eyes from rolling back in his head, visibly struggling to remain conscious. Amarië could feel his life flickering under her hands.

_This is death, then?_

_I have never known death, not the death of Quendi. I have heard stories of death since I was a little girl, but they were only stories. They were the stories Grandfather told me and my sisters. They were meant to regale and to terrify us. As much as I loved them, as much as I learned from them, there was no immediacy to the tales of Cuiviénen and Endóre and the long March to the Sundering Sea. I heard about death, heard about Quendi being killed by the Enemy's ilk and dying of starvation or thirst or exposure, but it never seemed real to me. I could not understand it. I could not _see _it._

_Finwë was killed in the darkness. I knew that much. I never saw his body. It was covered until it was taken to the pyre, and I was not permitted to bear witness to that. I waited outside, until my lady emerged and had need of me again. I knew that Finwë was dead, and it seemed real to me then, the idea that I would never see him again. But once again, there was no immediacy to it. The Exiles' flight upset me more. News from across the sea by the re-embodied, news of the deaths of those I loved, that upset me more._

He was whispering something, his gray lips moving, but Amarië could not hear the words. All she could hear in that moment was her heart beating in her throat, in her ears.

_This is death._

As though from far away, Amarië heard Fimbalda tell her to get the wineskin, and feed some of it to him. There was nothing in Fimbalda's face that let on that she thought he was going to die, but Amarië was not nearly as confident. She nodded silently, removed her hands from the nér's now-still shoulders, fetched the wineskin and uncorked it, and poured some of the wine into his mouth, stroking his throat to help it go down. The wine would help him sleep; Fimbalda had told her helpers that it was laced with sedative herbs.

Calarornë reached out and patted her shoulder. "You'll be taught more when things have the chance to settle down a bit. For now, just follow our instructions, alright?"

Amarië ripped her gaze away from the nér lying prone on the table, and nodded. She felt as though she would be sick, felt as though she would faint. She wished that there was some place she could go where she would not hear the sounds of battle, nor see it, nor smell the miasma of blood and smoke and sweat, and knew there was not. There was nowhere she could go. She was here now, and had to do her duty. She swallowed, and nodded.

* * *

Calaquendi—Elves of Light; the Elves who lived in Aman, especially during the Years of the Trees (singular: Calaquendë) (Quenya)  
Falmari—those among the Teleri who completed the journey to Aman; the name is derived from the Quenya falma, '[crested] wave.'  
Nér—man (plural: neri)  
Anar the Fire-golden—the name given to the Sun by the Vanyar, eventually adopted by the Noldor and the Teleri as 'Anar'  
Quendi—Elves (singular: Quendë) (Quenya)  
Endóre—Middle-Earth (Quenya)


End file.
